Granted, I don’t think most non-board or fans of the show have figured out the rule that same-names can’t play against each other. (I know it never occurred to me until I joined).

Except it's not a rule. They try to avoid it whenever possible, but it has happened. Stefan would know, but there was a college tournament where that happened and they used another name for one of the contestants.

Granted, I don’t think most non-board or fans of the show have figured out the rule that same-names can’t play against each other. (I know it never occurred to me until I joined).

Except it's not a rule. They try to avoid it whenever possible, but it has happened. Stefan would know, but there was a college tournament where that happened and they used another name for one of the contestants.

There have been two Teen Tournaments and a ToC where it happened in the finals (where TPTB's hands are tied and they can't change who plays against whom): in 1988 David Javerbaum and David Graham were in the TT finals, and the former went as D.J.; in 1996, Michael Daunt and Michael Dupée made the ToC finals, and Dupée went by Mike for that. And in the 2008 TT, Rachel Horn and Rachel Cooke were in the finals together, and Rachel Cooke was "Steve" (a silly high school nickname) (written with quotation marks).

Also, the 1985 ToC didn't have its quarter-final matchups arranged by TPTB, but in order of when the contestants first played, and it happened that J!'s third trio of 5x champions included Paul Boymel and Paul Croshier, the latter of whom included his rank in the Marines to avoid confusion. So he was "Staff Sergeant Paul," written "SSgt Paul" on his display.

I seem to remember that the Washington Post quoted Matt Jackson's mother during his streak in such a way as to imply he had already filmed his Tournament of Champions. But it was ambiguous enough that it was unclear whether it was a spoiler or bad phrasing by a reporter who maybe did not quite understand how the show worked. And then the article was edited to remove the reference, although again, that could have been either "cut the spoiler" or "remove the error." In retrospect, though, it apparently was a spoiler.

Although it can't be avoided in a Tournament, the real danger of two players of the same name is the temptation to respond to the other guy's name. If my name is Rumpelstiltskin, I would be willing to be accept being called Rumpy for the chance to be on TV and maybe win a lot of money, but I would be afraid that I would blurt out a response if I and the other Rumpelstiltskin ring in at the same time and his name is called.

I can say from personal experience that Maggie has called it a rule, but again, tournaments would be a special case.

At least the timing lights at the top of the lectern are also visible from the contestants' side, so someone stuck in this situation could glance down at those lights each time the shared name is called. Still, having to do that on every clue would probably get distracting.

I was glad that the potential for this to happen to me was near zero.
(Not that it ever had the chance to come up.)

Damn, did that take me back, Usenet seems like almost yesterday to me now! (Still have some friends I originally made on Usenet over 25 years ago!)

Surprised though, in all that they mentioned mass-posting of Monty Python quotes, but not once did they mention that’s likely where the term “spam” came from (referring to the eponymous Monty Python sketch).

I’m assuming this is a different Matt Bruce though.

"Jeopardy! is two parts luck and one part luck" - Me

"The way to win on Jeopardy is to be a rabidly curious, information-omnivorous person your entire life." - Ken Jennings

"For Bruce, there was no undoing the damage. 'After that, any time I reacted to the trolls it inspired them to do more,' he said. Online life became suddenly volatile: 'At the height of the trolling, my email address at Boston University became unusable, and the admins dropped all messages addressed to my account because it was such a high percentage of their inbound traffic.'"

"For Bruce, there was no undoing the damage. 'After that, any time I reacted to the trolls it inspired them to do more,' he said. Online life became suddenly volatile: 'At the height of the trolling, my email address at Boston University became unusable, and the admins dropped all messages addressed to my account because it was such a high percentage of their inbound traffic.'"

Oh, it very well might, but I wouldn’t have guessed without that connector that Usenet Matt was into trivia (or that LL BruceM was Ken’s friend as JenningsK isn’t his referrer.). Your research is usually impeccable so I’ll defer to you.

"Jeopardy! is two parts luck and one part luck" - Me

"The way to win on Jeopardy is to be a rabidly curious, information-omnivorous person your entire life." - Ken Jennings

I would say "Quiz Bowl acquaintances" characterizes Ken and Matt's relationship more than "friends," really, and given the quizzical circles they ran/run in, it shouldn't be terribly surprising that they'd become LL members independently of each other.

It is the same Matt Bruce. alt.college.college-bowl was destroyed by trolls following him across the internet. It was really nasty, and I probably shouldn't have brought it up, since it became hateful and unfunny fairly quickly, but I hadn't thought about it in a long time.

This was about 5 or 6 years after the term "spam" was invented though, for posting across all the usenet newsgroups.